Seen on a bumper sticker today:

It's hard to be humble when you're Scottish!

B-Day Song

My home computer is fried somehow, so I am doing this on Chris's laptop on the back deck on a "glorious" (as my Mum would say) Saturday morning. It must be near 70 at 10:00. Chris went to get Zach and Jess from raspberry picking. Windy our dog is panting on the ground near me in the sun in her black coat. Will and Zoe are watching Spongebob. Plans for today? Have a good time and not use gas!! I started a watercolor portrait of Zoe and Jess awhile ago. I could work on that. It's been a long, long time since I've done watercolor. I would have liked to have done acrylic, but I only had tiny tubes and couldn't spend the money to get more. Watercolor must be the cheapest way ever to paint. You need so little paint and it lasts forever. I don't even bother to squeeze fresh paint in the compartments. I just wet the dry stuff that's been there forever.
For the fourth, we just stayed home. There are a lot of firework stands around. We didn't buy any, but plenty of neighbors did, so we were set. There's a 19-year old guy next door. Nuf said. My favorite part of the day was unexpected. Some of our neighbors had their metal fire pit thingy going. It looked inviting sitting around it. But it took their sweet daughter asking me to come over (3 times) to "get up the courage" to bring my chair over. I'm glad I did. I was welcome and the group that was there was lively and friendly, and we had some great conversations till the wee hours. I would have stayed out even longer, but a neighbor's visiting racist, foul-mouthed, loud, obnoxious brother showed up and turned my stomach.
Best compliment lately came from Chris. He said I was a "warrior squaw" and that the other women were "fat squaw." What other women? I was marveling at how I know more than one woman who doesn't work, has only 2 kids, and still complains and doesn't even make dinner every night. Like, her husband gets fast food for himself or makes the kids mac and cheese. I thought it was a pretty cool thing for Chris to say. I was definitely gratified. :)
I'd post some new pics, but this laptop doesn't want to get photos from my camera. Not amused. Not savvy. So pictureless I remain.
Zach and Jess did their first of 2 days worth of CAT tests yesterday.
Will make raspberry jam today. Already did strawberry.

Today, Zach and Jessie started raspberry picking 15 minutes away. I have to get them there at 7:00 in the morning. They picked for 2 1/2 hours. Twelve is the youngest age, and it's a rare opportunity, so I signed them up. Zach did it last year. I bought local strawberries today right near the raspberry fields. They are so delightful and perfect. Pretty soon, I'll buy raspberries!

I'm pretty sure Zach and Will both have shot up like an inch in the last month. Maybe that wasn't lime koolaid I thought I was making. Maybe it was Miracle Gro.

The Best Day of Swimming Ever

This afternoon I decided to take Will, Jess, and Zoe to Sumner Community Pool for their 2-3:30 family fun swim--about 30 min. away. It became clear after awhile that traffic was REALLY slow. I thought this was due to the road resurfacing that has been happening on our main road out of Orting. But it was some kind of accident or something, and at a certain point, traffic was NOT COMING OR GOING. It was just about 2:00, but I thought, I'll turn around and go right at Military Rd. and try to find my way over there. But Military Rd was truly blocked due to resurfacing. There was no time or justification to do a really long roundabout. Sooooo, we turned around toward home again. But, I thought, I'll salvage this and we'll go to the river, where we had some nice times in the summer last year. Plus, it's free. After stopping at McDonald's to change in the bathroom and get starving people burgers, we head to the river. Of course, they're resurfacing that road, too, and there are monstrous vehicles parked where we normally park. So, we turn around and park in a place where we have to walk around a mile to get to our spot. We walk and walk and get there. The river seems low and the mud in the region is excessively squishy. But we didn't go this far to turn around yet, right? Everybody strips down and finds long ways around the mud to get to the good part. And the water is so cold and the air only 70 degrees, that one's feet ache after a short time in the water. Get out, walk around, maybe get used to it? Nothin doin. Time to call it a day. I'm wearing flip flops, and there is this one spot that is SO SOFT, that I just sink and fall directly to my knees. I'm carrying my bag and what's left of my drink. I have mud up to my thighs, but I keep everything from dumping and even my shorts mud-free. It must have looked really funny, but I was not too happy at the time. What a truly disappointing time. I think I'll move to Australia.
And then I was going to make devilled eggs for dinner, and when I removed the shell, it pulled off tons of white, on every egg. So the eggs looked like they had been assaulted by hungry voles. So we had egg salad with biscuits instead. Weird. I did actually see a vole like creature on our way out of the slough of despond. It was a good sized mole, I believe, and it swam from the water into a tunnel in the mud!

What's new?
Chris got medieval on our garage--deep cleaned it Saturday. It looks a lot bigger, and is a sight to behold. I took Zach and Jessie swimming, which was fun. Zoe went to a neighbor's brother's baseball game. Then I went for a bike ride. Dinner was quiche, or as Alton Brown calls it, "refrigerator pie." Yum.

Sunday--had parents over for Father's Day. Chris barbecued ribeyes and made the world's best barbecue beans with bacon, molasses, maple syrup, etc. I baked giant potatoes and served green salad. I forgot to add the bacon to the salad. Duh. Dessert was gourmet sorbets--coconut, chocolate, espresso, and raspberry...with decaf. Weather has been perfect--upper 60s, low 70s.

School is officially done tomorrow! Wow!! Jessie wants to go back to "regular school" in fall. The new middle school will be done then.

In bed sick all day yesterday. Not fun. Feeling quite a bit better and going to the doctor in a few hours.

I had a very extreme and scary dream last night. One of the books I'm reading is The Time Traveler's Wife, so that impacted me. I dreamed I was at Fairwood, and so were a bunch of other people, of course. It was 1945, and the stinkin' Nazis, with Hitler and tanks showed up!!!! I had all the kids but no Chris. I was wondering if I should hide in the woods with them or stay behind and help others. At one point, and this is funny, because my Mexico vacation, with its touristy pirate ship came into play, Hitler was on this pirate ship, and some of our people were on it. Very quickly, he brainwashed our youth to fire croquet balls at their own family with cannons!!! I am not making this up. It was very dangerous. I had to dodge quite a few. Later, IN A CAB, if you can believe it, with 2 teenage girl Fairwoodians, I was screaming at them so hard for shooting croquet balls at their family members ("Would you really have wanted to smash your grandmother in the face?!?!?!?") that I was turning red and spitting. I actually asked an older Fairwoodian, "The Nazis didn't REALLY come to Fairwood in 1945, did they?" So I guess I had a hint it was a time traveling nightmare. Very glad to wake up!!